A Flash of Silver
by Evander Heiro
Summary: Kagome has an unexpected meeting in the wood... Where could this lead? What will the others think, when they find out. -ON HOLD TILL EXAMS ARE OVER-  sorry
1. What came before

Hiya guys!

this chapter's a long one, the next one shouldn't be quite so long but please read and review, even if only to tell me that I can't put a decent sentence together (big puppy-dog eyes.) in any case. please enjoy the second chapter of my first ever fan-fiction. i don't own Inuyasha or any of it's characterssob but hey, what can I do about it.

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**A flash of silver: What came before...**

Sesshoumaru's Point of View

It had started off as a normal day, well as normal as a day in the life of a demon lord could be when accompanied by a toad-like retainer and a human child.

Sesshoumaru had recently started having troubling reports from his villages in the south, about a rogue demon of vast strength (obviously no match for his own,) had been attacking livestock and had now apparently started attacking people, a far more serious matter, mainly due to the fact that those villages and the land in that area where under his protection. Not wanting the matter to linger Sesshoumaru sighed inwardly as he put down his brush, neatly shuffled and stacked up numerous scrolls and reports and rose from his seated position, his mind decided in his course of action.

Heading into the garden he decided to see what his retainer and ward where doing, smirking inwardly as he sensed the toad's discomfort.

'Oww, stop that, HEY!'

'Jaken, you really can't play catch very well for a demon. You're meant to catch the ball. Not bounce it off your head.' Rin giggled.

'w-what!' the toad-like creature stuttered in outrage. 'Are you implying that I'm not a good enough demon!' he carried on insulted.

'No' Rin said, still in her sing-song voice. 'I just mean that you can't catch a ball very well.'

-Thunk-

A ball flew into the bushes behind which Sesshoumaru was concealing himself, narrowly avoiding his left ear. Deciding enough was enough Sesshoumaru stepped out into the open (by the way guys, he wasn't in the bush [way to undignified, could you really imagine him doing that!] but just behind it.)

'lord Sesshoumaru' Rin said happily, behind her Jaken was once again apologizing about Rin's 'lack of manners' and 'respect', also as usual everyone else was ignoring him as he did so.

'Rin, I'm going to be away for a few days sorting out some business in the southern villages. Obey what Jaken tells you to do and don't cause too much trouble.' Sesshoumaru said.

'Okay.' Rin replied, her eyes already gleaming with mischief at the trouble she could cause for Jaken when Sesshoumaru was away. By this point Jaken had stopped groveling and as he walked away Sesshoumaru could already hear him telling Rin that she should behave, to no avail.

As their voices receded into the background Sesshoumaru went back to his chambers, dressed in his amour and swords and left the castle through the south portal. Before starting on his journey Sesshoumaru had decided to take his time when out as he had been cooped up too long in the castle and was in dire need of solitude and something he could have a decent fight with, he had had no good opponents recently who could should their ground for longer that a minute when he was serious.

* * *

Walking through the forest he felt his mind calm as he walked between the thick trunks and broad canopies of the trees that had been old even before he was born. He knew that Jaken was competent enough to look after his lands and not destroy them in under a moon cycle, however much Rin may annoy him and however stupid he may seem.

Having decided to take his time Sesshoumaru walked, it would have been faster to use his mist or to run but either would only draw attention to himself and for the time being he had no wish to be found and disturbed from his pondering as he enjoyed the late summer sun. He knew that there was no pressing need to rush as the rogue demon wasn't going to go very far and would be dealt with when he got there but no sooner.

* * *

It was around noon the next day when he passed by the bone-eaters well in the forest of Inuyasha where his hanyou bastard of a brother resided. As he had neither Rin nor Jaken he had no need to stop every night and had continued walking through the night, as he walked further into the forest of Inuyasha he realized that the scent of the miko (that a small part at the back of his mind thought smelled quite nice) seemed to come from down the well. A few days ago, judging by the scent, she had come up out of the well, walked a few hundred meters down the path, met his bastard brother and walked to the village.

Carrying on Sesshoumaru mused about the rogue demon and whether it would be strong enough to give him a decent bout of exercise, but his mind kept being drawn back to the case of the human miko coming out of the well. And seemingly disappearing down it.

* * *

The next day, shortly after nightfall, Sesshoumaru was getting close to the attacked villages, masking his aura he continued this time moving a little more cautiously. Not that he had any pressing need to as he was one of the strongest demons on the area, however he wished to remain unnoticed for as long as possible if it would avoid another unnecessary fight with his insufferable half brother.

He had noticed some strange demonic auras not long before and soon recognized them as shards from the cursed jewel that his pathetic brother was trying to collect. There where probably about six of them, but seemingly in two groups, one to the south-east and the other also in the south-east but further away, both within the next five Ri. (About 1.2 miles) No doubt the rest of his travelling party would be there, the dragon slayer and the monk seemed to have a lingering loyalty to his brother and the miko. Not that they posed any great threat to him. The only one that could be counted a future threat was probably the miko, and she had no control over her powers as of yet.

Soon enough he recognized their scents on the wind, they where roughly a Ri to the south-east, close to the attacked areas, no doubt the miko had the shards he sensed in that direction. The others where probably already in the hands of the rouge, and for once Sesshoumaru was pleased that the jewel shards existed as this would lend the monster some borrowed strength giving him a stronger opponent to defeat, even if only for a short while.

The one thing that made Sesshoumaru wonder was that the miko was a while away from the rest of the group and night was going to fall soon. In the end he reasoned that he may as well see what she was doing, ways away from his brother. She needn't know that he was watching her, she would have great difficulty in sensing him due to his shielded aura and would probably only notice him if she where to catch a glimpse of him.

Is Sesshoumaru was truly honest with himself he found the girl a bit of an enigma, she often used strange words, she had slightly odd manners and wore unusual and almost indecent clothes (a little voice at the back of his mind reminded him that she did have very nice legs…) that voice though was swiftly dismissed and ignored. It would not do for a lord to have such thoughts; however he would freely admit that the miko was a puzzle if he ever knew one.

'I wonder what her reaction would be if I was to show myself' Sesshoumaru mused.


	2. Back to the past

Hiya guys, sorry it took so long to upload, i had a tsunami of exams. one brief note, I. Don't. Own. Inuyasha. Or Sango, or Miroku, or Shippou, or Kagome, or even Sesshy…*drools*…Sesshy… *suddenly snaps out of it*. as I was saying earlier before I *clears throat* got, _sidetracked_, here is the next chapter.

"…" – speech

'…' – thoughts

…- locations

*…* - noises/sounds

^+^+^+^+^+^ - time has passed (later…)

*$%#&* - various words that if I wrote them my sister would kill me and drag me to hell (no I'm not related in any way shape or form to the undead *$%* of a miko, 'scuse my language)

This stuff may change in later chapters, if/when I get my keyboard fixed (it's a bit skew-whiff at the moment, when I want "I have to hit .etc. You get the picture)

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**What came before: **Kagome's point of view.

Modern-day Tokyo at the Higurashi shrine

"Mum, I'm off" Kagome said while putting on her bulging bag and running out of the door.

"Hmm, alright dear, be careful out there" Mrs. Higurashi absent-mindedly said as she watched her teenage daughter depart down the shrine well that she had been frequenting for the last year and a half.

"I will mum! I'll try and be back in about a week or two" the well door slid shut behind Kagome and all was quiet again in the yard.

Kagome relaxed in the familiar feel of the wells magic as it took her back to her feudal friends and an irritated hanyou who was waiting by the well at her return.

"Feh, what took you so long?" Inuyasha grumbled, arms crossed and head cocked to the side. Despite his outwardly grumpy posture Kagome noticed that his eyes betrayed his happiness at her being back.

After travelling with the brash dog-demon for over a year now Kagome had mastered the skill of working out what Inuyasha was thinking (most of the time,) from what his eyes where like. When he was angry his eyes where a dark bronze and almost held an inner fire, when he was confused or sad his eyes clouded over and lost their shine but when he was his normal annoying self his eyes where amber with flecks of gold. Most of the time this skill wasn't needed as he had a tendency to say whatever he was thinking at the time be it rude, crude or otherwise but it had proved useful on occasions as it meant that she could tell when he was lying.

Heading back towards the village they shared a companionable silence both thinking all sorts of thoughts, the more predominant ones among both being along the lines of 'I wonder where the next jewel shard is?' and, in Inuyasha's case 'where, for f*%&k's sake is Naraku?'

When they arrived at Kaede's hut Kagome was instantly jumped on by a fox-tailed blob of energy.

"Okaa-san!"

"Hiya Shippou, I brought you something." Kagome said, drawing a large lollypop out of her oversized backpack, laughing when she noticed how his eyes followed the sugary sweet. "Here you go." She said, giving him the lolly.

"Arigato, Okaa-san."

"You do know that he's going to be bouncing off the walls for the next few hours." Miroku said.

"Yup, but a little bit of sugar never hurt anyone, not to my knowledge at least" Kagome answered.

"In any case" Sango intervened "how about we all go in and have dinner." This notion was met with much approval and they soon entered the house, Shippou following suite later, when the lollypop had been reduced down to its paper-wrapped stick.

The next day, early as ever they set out. Kagome thought that she felt something to the south but wasn't sure, they went south anyway though mainly due to the fact that they had no other leads as to where the shards could be. Travelling onwards the pull of the shards got stronger and our trusty group of shard hunters started

hearing reports of a rogue demon, number one prime suspect to be in possession of the shards.

Day five of the journey proved to be a tough one, it would only have been another day's travel or so to reach the jewel shard but for once even Inuyasha agreed that they should rest, this was due to several things:

First, it had been raining for most of the morning making most of the travelling a reasonably miserable affair. The umbrellas that Kagome had brought with her in her bulging rucksack had helped a little but it still wasn't very enjoyable.

Secondly, they had had various encounters with all sorts of demons, and these weren't the sort to invite you out to a tea party. They had a grand total of five attacks throughout the day, a new record of sorts and not exactly a good one either, leaving them rather tired.

Thirdly it was the day before the new moon and Inuyasha was jumpy as hell, not helping group morale. One small mercy was that they had seen neither hide nor hair of Naraku and his spawn.

They finally made camp in a small clearing about a day's walk through the forest to wherever the jewel shards where, yes you heard me, shards. As they got closer Kagome managed to realise that it was not only one shard that the rouge demon had, it had three. Thankfully it had not consumed them yet, otherwise who knows what would have happened to the surrounding villages.

After rummaging through her bag and prying out her sleeping stuff along with dinner, namely ramen, Kagome decided to go, wash and relax in a hot spring that they had passed earlier, about fifteen minutes walk from camp.

"Where d'you think you're going?" Inuyasha asked irritably, his eyes darting to the soon setting sun and then back to Kagome's face again. "If you think that I'm going to let you go out there at this time of the night then you're wrong."

"Inuyasha." Kagome said sweetly. "SIT!"

"Do you want me to come with you?" Sango asked, looking behind her at the twitching form of Inuyasha as well as Miroku who was edging closer and closer to her.

"No worries, you don't have to come if you don't want to. I won't be gone long; I just want to freshen up. You can have fun keeping these peeping toms in line while I'm gone." Kagome said and started her mental countdown.

'Three,

Two,

One,

And….'

*SLAP*

Miroku walked over to sit with Inuyasha with a red handprint on his face. You could hear him mumbling; "it's the hand that's cursed, not me."

Kagome sweat-dropped. 'Boy, are they predictable.'

"Okay." Sango said evenly, after giving Miroku and Inuyasha a warning look.

"Thanks!" Kagome said running off in the direction of the spring.

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**Glossary:**

Okaa-san = mother

Arigato = thank you

(please read and reveiw guys, ^_^; i'm feeling lonely)


	3. A flash of silver

Kagome's first instinct when she saw the flash of silver hair, gliding through the forest to her left, was to say one specific word very, very, loudly.

**"Sit"**

* * *

A dull thump echoed through the forest as, in a nearby clearing, a certain silver-haired hanyou was pulled from his lofty perch and swiftly made familiar with the earth by will of an all-to-familiar necklace.

A moan was heard from the prone figure.

"What did I do wrong _this_ time?"

* * *

Kagome had heard the thump from somewhere behind her and didn't like what it meant for her situation.

"Sesshoumaru?" she asked in a confused voice. The retreating figure of the western lord stopped, turned and raised a silver eyebrow at the towel-clad figure stepping out of the spring.

A mental 'oops' resounded through Kagome's head when she realised exactly what she was wearing and who she was talking to. This though was quickly pushed aside by other thoughts that had re-surfaced with a vengeance.

"Can't you give a girl a bit of privacy? I mean really, how difficult is it to avoid a small spring in the middle of a forest by a few hundred metres when, knowing what you demons are like, you probably caught my scent a long way off." She said angrily "And by the way, stop going after Tetsaiga. It's rejected you once and it'll do so again unless something changes, most likely your opinion on humans, and somehow I doubt that that will happen anytime soon. If ever. So get used to it.

Sesshoumaru just stood through Kagome's tirade, the one eyebrow still raised. His face carefully retaining it's blank, emotionless façade, slightly amazed that so many words could come from such a slight person as well as her audacity to speak to the lord of the western lands in such a manner. For her sheer nerve Sesshoumaru decided to let her get away with her lack of manners just this once.

At the end of her outburst Kagome turned and walked back to the spring in a huff, picked up her things and left Sesshoumaru's view with an angry dignity, carefully ignoring the person she was so angry with.

'Interesting creature' Sesshoumaru thought to himself.

Kagome managed to keep up her façade until Sesshoumaru was out of sight and then promptly sat down like a puppet with cut strings, as the bravado that had been hiding her fear dissolved.

"why on earth did I do that?" she mumbled to herself, only realising now how badly that confrontation could have turned for the worse.

A few minutes later when she had composed herself Kagome started walking back to the campfire and a sulking hanyou demon

Sesshoumaru was now officially intrigued. He had smelt that girl's fear yet she had not acted on it like most would have, she was one of the few that actually faced him and lotd him what they truly thought, unlike his spineless vassals. He'd have to keep and eye on her, he had a feeling she'd prove interesting in future.

As Kagome made it back to the campsite she nearly got bowled over by Shippou and Inuyasha. "Kagome are you alright?" he asked in a worried but angry voice. "You've got that bastard brother of mine's scent on you. Did he hurt you? I'll make him taste my sword if he did."

"What happened Kagome-mamma?" Shippou asked.

"nothing." said Kagome, sweat dropping a bit at Inuyasha's antics. "He was unusually polite, didn't do anything and the encounter was over quickly, Whaaat?" she asked in question to her other companions, sitting side by side with raised eyebrows and giving her the look.

"What. Is. That. Look. For." Kagome asked

"What happened" Sango eventually asked in a mild voice, eyes wide in wonder.

Kagome gave a sharp look at Miroku, Inuyasha and Shippou who where studiously trying and failing to look like they weren't listening on the conversation.

"In short; I was bathing when I saw some silver hair, thought it was Inuyasha being a peeping tom and so yelled the 'S' word. When the person with silver hair didn't face plant I realised that it was Sesshoumaru, asked him what he was doing, told him to give me a leeway when I'm bathing and to stop going after Tessaiga, then I walked away. Yes I got freaked out afterwards." Kagome said in response to her friend's shocked expressions.

'He was actually Okay for a change though' Kagome thought to herself. 'Maybe I should keep an eye on him…'

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Hiya, Evander here.

All you guys please R&R ^-^


	4. A meeting in the woods

Once again, I don't own Inuyasha and co. though if anyone wants to give me an early christmas present...

soz that this took a while to get together, the next chapter should hopefully come soon(er.) keep thosr reveiws coming! ^_^

"…" – speech

'…' – thoughts

…- locations

*…* - noises/sounds

^+^+^+^+^+^ - time has passed (later…)

*$%#&* - various words that if I wrote them my sister would kill me and drag me to hell (like a certain undead miko)

This stuff may change in later chapters, if/when I get my keyboard fixed (it's a bit skew-whiff at the moment, when I want "I have to hit etc. You get the picture)

**A Flash of silver: ** A meeting in the woods

The wind whipped past his face as Sesshoumaru leapt through the trees. After the incident with the miko he had realized that his brother's group where most likely going after the shards that the rouge demon had. Normally Sesshoumaru wouldn't object to someone killing off a rogue demon for him but tonight he needed to vent a little, As good as Jaken was in terms of a stress reliever (a.k.a. a football.) he just didn't match up to tearing someone or something limb from limb.

Soon his prey came into sight, unwisely it was heading towards him, probably mistaking him for some low-rank demon, he had concealed his aura after all.

"Who are you and what do you want from me?" the demon asked in a demanding voice.

Dropping his concealment Sesshoumaru stepped into glade and gave his opponent a good look.

The rogue was a snake demon, a natural trickster, liar and swindler. Sesshoumaru guessed the demon to be about his thirties in human years, probably around the seven-hundreds in yoke terms. His scales ranged from dark green at his chest to pale grey at his tail, he had some human armor on, (A/N think of what the people who tried to kidnap Kagome in the third episode wore) but no other obvious weapons. Not that he had any need of any human weapons, his fangs and claws would be enough for most lesser demons due to the fact that snake youki where poisonous, though this demon was aged for his species he also seemed quite powerful for his kind, probably the reason he had so many shards in his possession. 'At least the coward hasn't used the shards for borrowed power, though it would improve the fight.' Sesshoumaru mused. The creature wasn't as strong as he would have wished though it would suffice for now.

Feeling the large aura expanding around him the snake swallowed visibly, pride and a sense of grim bravado keeping him where he was. Sesshoumaru humored the creature, if only partially.

"Stop attacking my villages." Sesshoumaru said in an expressionless voice. At this point the snake had worked out who he was facing and rather than shrinking away he reached into his armor, got out his shards and promptly swallowed them. The effect was instantaneous to say the least. Each of his scales shimmered a moment and then turned an inky shade of black, each with a metallic sheen. His slit-like eyes, once black now where a burning shade of red and the most obvious of all the shards appeared on his forehead, their dark shine now stronger than ever. The now transformed demon gave himself a look over and then turned back to Sesshoumaru saying:

"I, Ilari of the southern snake-demons hereby challenge you, lord Sesshoumaru of the western lands, for lordship over the western lands." Sesshoumaru said nothing and merely drew Tokijin, the rasp of metal on metal sounding very loud in the near-silent clearing. Here was yet another fool who was using the borrowed strength of the shards in an attempt to overthrow his lands and take control. His predecessors hadn't succeeded and neither would he.

Though he would be a fun opponent to toy with.

Ilari wasted no time, running towards the stotic taiyouki with claws outstreched and fangs bared, fully intent on separating him limb from limb. almost casually Sesshoumaru sidestepped and raised Tokijin, deflecting the poison seeped claws with an easy grace.

Deciding to 'play' with his new toy for a while, sesshoumaru didn't attack; merely deflecting his opponents blows and sidestepping occasionally, barely moving from his original position. internally grinning (not that his face actually showed this) sesshoumaru watched with a twinkle in his eye, watching his reptilian opponent grow more and more frustrated and angry as his jewel-enhanced speed and strength had seemingly no effect over his calm opponent.

Deciding to oblige the now royally peeved-off snake sesshoumaru stepped up a gear, even if it was only because his opponent reminded him much too much of his idiot half-brother and, quite frankly, that annoyed him.

in all honest sesshoumaru had noticed the snake's strength and he was paying more attention than usual. probably due to the fact that for once he could face an opponent that wasn't completely incompetent, but the game was starting to wear thin and decided to end the deadly dance.

a swift parry, sidestep and swing of Tokijin later and Ilari, once of the southern snake demons, was kneeling in a pool of his own blood. his glassy eyes stared up at the demon lord a few feet away.

color slowly seeped back into the clearing as the sun rose, light glinting off the jet black shards in the fallen demon's forehead. Carefully avoiding the inky blood sesshoumaru knelt down and retrieved the shards, as mush as he had enjoyed sparring with the snake, he had no desire to fight against the fool a second time where he to regenerate as it had started proving tedious the first time.

rising, sesshoumaru felt a familiar and currently unwanted aura. Naraku, more accurately a deamon doll of Naraku. Great, just what he wanted at a time like this.

"Sesshoumaru, i believe you have something that belongs to me." the puppet said, naraku's oily voice sounding through the clearing.

"Naraku you bastard, wait till i get my hands on you" inuiyasha yelled, bursting through the undergrowth, promptly skidding to a stop and pointing to sesshoumaru "and what the hell are you doing with my stuck-up brother?"

The rest of the gang arriving seconds later, puffing and out of breath where witnesses to an odd but unfortunately not unfamiliar scene. inuyasha, his face as red as his fire-rat haori was yelling obscenities and (rather unusually) conspiracy theories involving sesshoumaru, naraku and an basket of leeks for a reason that nobody could quite fathom. meanwhile sesshoumaru was standing there, the familiar raised eyebrow in place, keeping a weary eye on naraku and ignoring everything his half-brother had to say.

it was at this opportune moment that naraku had had enough of their squabbles and launched his attack, shooting a mass of tentacles at the two brothers. sesshoumaru, having seen naraku's approach managed to gracefully jump back a few metres but inuyasha who had bee too preocupied yelling about his older brother barely missed the slithering mass of tentacles, stumbling back a bit befor drawing tetsaiga

"now that i have your attention..." naraku drawled "i believe you have something of mine, sesshoumaru."


	5. An arrow and a fire lily

_... i believe you have something of mine" Naraku said._

"Keh, like he'd give it to you. have this instead!" swinging tetsaiga inuyasha lunged at sesshoumaru, cue for the others to pick up their weapons and join him. But not before kagome shot sesshoumaru a calculating look. 'Why on earth does he have some jewel shards, I thought he wasn't interested in them.'kagome's other thoughts at that point also consisted of 'His hair is so silky, I wonder how the hell he does it? this is the feudal era after all.' as well as; 'dammit, I need to stop thinking these sorts of things. '

"Kaze no Kizu!" Inuyasha yelled, the yellow fangs of the wind scar heading towards the many-limbed spider demon.

Swinging tetsaiga, Inuyasha let off another wind scar, only to have it rebound and come towards him due to the crimson barrier surrounding the doll. Sesshoumaru was having slightly more luck even though he seemed to have most of naraku's attention, tokijin slicing through the offending appendages that crept outside the barrier as though they where butter, this image however was soon dispelled buy the solid *thwomp*s that they made when hitting the ground. The only small problem with that was that for every tentacle the taiyouki lopped off another two grew again within seconds as the fallen bits of flesh soon became re-absorbed into the puppet Naraku. Oh Joy.

Sango, Miroku and kirara where battling nearby, trying to protect Shippo and kagome as she shot out arrow after arrow to purify tentacles, miasma and pulverize the saimyosho that where hindering the cursed monk.

"Shippo." Kagome said. "stay here with miroku and sango but stay out of sight." Tucking the small kit behind a conveniently placed bush. Nocking her last arrow kagome stepped out towards the two brothers, her eyes fixed on the demon doll and his crimson barrier.

"Inuyasha, brace yourself!"

Loosing the arrow she watched with satisfaction as its pink flare streaked across the clearing and struck the red barrier and stuck there, half in, half out cracking it. Interestingly enough it was not Inuyasha but Sesshoumaru who ended up breaking the barrier, tokijin crackling with blue energy as it descended upon the unfortunate barrier which then cracked into a myrad of fist-sized pieces.

The puppet, realizing it's predicament, (two royally p!$$*d off dog demons with rather sharp swords that would prefer nothing more or less than to wipe its presence off the face of the planet,) had a last strikeout, attempting to take as many with it as possible. Shooting a mass of tentacles at each pocket of fighters Naraku put all his devious energy behing the masses of tentacles, most of which going to the demon brothers.

Sango, kirara and Miroku Managed To evade their mass of tentacles, kirara having jumped over most of then and hiraikotsu destroying the rest that wheren't destroyed by all manner of sutras, trailed by the rest of their tentacle mass the three flew forward, hiraikotsu cutting off the head of the demon doll, though not before had edged in a wind scar.

He, Sesshoumaru and kagome had had their own dilemmas, Inuyasha had managed to cut off nearly all of the tentacles with his windscar and had damaged the fake Naraku enough for sango to use hiraikotsu. Sesshoumaru had also done likewise with tokijin, the crackling blast of blue energy vaporizing the offending appendages before they even came close.

Kagome, on the other hand, had a rather more prominent problem. With no arrows left she was completely defenceless as well as the fact that the sneaky creep had sent his tentacles towards Shippo instead of her. Crap. running towards her adoptive kit, kagome spread he arms wide, with no thought as to what she'd actually do once she had intercepted the oncoming mass. That would happen when she got there.

And she did. Just. The large mass of black tentacles sparked off a pale pink barrier only a few inches from her nose before crumbling as sango and Inuyasha demolished the remaining bits of the doll. Unfortunately for out dear miko the resulting fore from the tentacle's impact threw her back towards the oncoming treeline and a rather large maple tree.

Kagome was aware of a lot more than she wanted to be at the point in time where she was flying through the sky, as you do in such situations, noticing everything like how green the leaves seemed, how blue the azure sky and how very hard the impact into the trees would be. Unfortunately at this seemingly long moment in time kagome's mind had just enough information to work out all manner of things like;

a) that if, or more accurately when, she hit the tree it would most defiantly not be pleasant, if anything quite the opposite,

b) she would probably break a bone or two. Inuyasha had survived something similar before with no apparent side-effects(other than loosing another few precious grey cells) but then he was half demon, nope. It would not be pretty.

c) The trees where getting very close very fast.

d) Someone with silver hair was close behind, more accurately, between her and the oncoming trees

As strong arms caught her kagome peeked a look only for her eyes to widen in surprise, it wasn't Inuyasha that had caught her (that idiot was still hacking pieced off the now collapsed demon doll) but his elder and(dare she think it) rather attractive brother. Not that she'd be one of the girls to start drooling over his lordship.

'his lordship' put her down quickly (and rather gently, her treacherous mind added) next to a worried looking Shippo who promptly jumped into her arms asking is she was alright. Sesshoumaru, after having checked that the demon doll had been vanquished (more accurately hacked into pieces and then kazanna'd into oblivion by Miroku once the saimyosho had gone) had swiftly turned around and walked out of the clearing and into the thick forest, his long strides soon taking him out of sight.

Absent-mindedly calming Shippo kagome gazed at the woods where Sesshoumaru had left kagome ponered about the demon lord. Dfter having spent so long with Inuyasha it was only to be expected that she'd become good at reading people's emotions but Sesshoumaru was something else entirely. When he had put her down the look he gave her and Shippo, it was so fleeting she'd only just seen it and wasn't even sure if she had seen the flicker of emotion in the first place. First a flash of what seemed like worry, as Shippo jumped up at her, though that was unlikely coming from a demon lord, this one in particular. Then she had seen another emotion, buried deeper it was almost, longing, but before she could dig deeper into his emotional treasure-trove his icy façade once again slipped back into place and he had left. Shippo drew her attention back to the present space and time, saying;

"how do you think rin is? Do you think he's gone to see how she is, I mean, he's probably worried about her with the attack and all. Can we go and play with her sometime soon?"

"I don't know darling, but I think it should be ok next time we see them, we'll have to check with Sesshoumaru"

"lets move out guys. there is a village about two day's journey from here." inuyasha said." we can stock up there"

"for once i agree, the scent of naraku will either attract some and repel other demons and i don't particularly want to meet that lot. we don't have to far to go but let's get a bit further through these woods."

-time passes-

our little group eventually made camp that night in a small clearing, sango and miroku close to the fire, an arm's length from each other, inuyasha in his tree as usual and kagome and shippo, tucked up inside her sleeping bag on the other side of the campfire. night passed and the group woke up as per usual to the sound of birdsong. wriggling out of her sleeping bag kagome stumbled over to her trusty yellow monstrosity of a backpack, intending to get out today's berakfast.

whe she came across it however, it was not as she had left it. The cogs in her mind started turning rather quickly when she had full comprehended that three jewel shards and a beautifull flower where lying ontop of her backpack. it was not lost on her that the only person that she had come across who had three jewel shards and hadn't used them was her idiot companions brother, what did make her wonder was thet he had obviously left them for her along with a flower that she had never seen before. The flower was a mix of colors, all sorts of yellows and oranges with hints of red and gold. Almost the same color as the roaring flames from last night's campfire.

gently tucking the flower behind her ear kagome turned back to making breakfast, not noticing the odd look that inuyasha threw in her direction. both inuyasha and kagome however, where unaware of yet another pair of golden eyes looking at them from through the trees, a small, very rare smile on his face.


End file.
